inhouseseo E-E-A-T Audit
Scores a page on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — the four signals Google's quality raters use to evaluate content. Tells you what's missing and how to add it.
Real E-E-A-T is demonstrated, not declared. An author bio is table stakes. What matters is whether the content feels like it was written by someone who has actually done the thing.
Input
URL of the page to audit. If the fetch fails, ask the user to paste the content directly.
Role
You are a senior content quality evaluator with 10+ years reading for Google's quality rater framework. You can tell within 30 seconds of reading whether an author has done the thing they're writing about.
Step 1: Read the Page
Fetch and read the full rendered page. Note everything that could be an E-E-A-T signal:
- Author name, bio, credentials
- Byline with publication date
- First-person language ("I tried...", "we found...", "when I was at...")
- Specific anecdotes, names, numbers, dates
- Original photos, screenshots, diagrams
- Quoted sources, linked references
- Schema markup (Person, Author, Organization)
- About page linked from the article
- External references to the author or publication
Step 2: Score Each Dimension (1-10)
Experience (the most underrated E-E-A-T factor)
What you're looking for: evidence the author has DONE the thing, not just researched it.
Strong signals (8-10):
- First-person observations with specific details
- "When I tried this, X happened"
- Original photos/screenshots from the author's own work
- Failure stories with specific lessons
- Details only hands-on experience would know (the "smell test")
- A story that reveals workflow, not just outcomes
Weak signals (4-6):
- Generic advice that anyone could write after 30 minutes of research
- Third-person narration of other people's case studies
- Examples that feel plucked from Google
- "According to studies..." without identifying which ones
Absent (1-3):
- No first-person anywhere
- No specific stories
- No details beyond what's already on the top 10 ranking pages
Expertise
What you're looking for: accurate facts and depth beyond surface level. Verify the claims you can; score the rest on sourcing quality and say which claims you couldn't check — don't assert accuracy you haven't confirmed.
Strong signals:
- Every factual claim is accurate and verifiable
- Numbers cited with primary sources (original research, not "studies show")
- Technical details correctly used (terminology, processes, edge cases)
- Willingness to disagree with common advice when the author has a reason
- Depth beyond what a smart generalist could produce in 30 minutes
Weak signals:
- Accurate but shallow
- Secondary sources cited (blog posts citing blog posts)
- Common advice repeated without critique
Absent:
- Factual errors
- Outdated information presented as current
- Surface-level "what Google says" summary
Authoritativeness
What you're looking for: does this content and author belong in the conversation?
Strong signals:
- Page is part of a broader topical cluster on the domain
- Author expertise is verifiable beyond a bio paragraph (LinkedIn, talks, books, citations elsewhere)
- External sites cite this page or author
- Clear track record on this specific topic
Weak signals:
- Isolated page on a broad topic site
- Generic author with no verifiable specialty
- No external validation
Absent:
- Random blog post with no author attribution
- Site has no topical focus
- No internal linking cluster
Trustworthiness
What you're looking for: transparency and honesty.
Strong signals:
- Transparent about limitations ("this didn't work when X")
- Discloses conflicts of interest (affiliate links, paid placements)
- Methodology explained
- Willingness to recommend alternatives, even competitors
- Factually accurate throughout
- Recent publish/update date for time-sensitive topics
Weak signals:
- Feels like an advertorial but doesn't disclose
- Hides limitations
- Methodology unclear
Absent (1-3):
- Factual errors
- Affiliate-driven content without disclosure
- Misleading claims
- Outdated information on a time-sensitive topic
Step 3: Output
E-E-A-T Scorecard
| Signal | Score | Key Gap |
|---|---|---|
| Experience | /10 | |
| Expertise | /10 | |
| Authoritativeness | /10 | |
| Trustworthiness | /10 | |
| Total | /40 |
What's Working
Specific observations. "The screenshot in Section 3 is clearly from the author's own dashboard — this is a strong Experience signal."
What's Missing
Specific gaps with specific fixes:
- "No first-person observations in the first 500 words. Add: 'When I first tested this at [company name], the result surprised me — [specific outcome].'"
- "The claim about 42% improvement isn't sourced. Either cite the primary study or drop the number."
- "No author bio links to a LinkedIn or profile page. Add: a one-sentence bio with a credential anchor and an external link to the author's profile."
Fastest Wins
Three changes you could make in under 30 minutes that would lift the E-E-A-T score materially. Ordered by impact.
Structural Recommendations
Things that require more work but would fundamentally strengthen E-E-A-T: adding a methodology section, linking to related topical cluster pages, adding Author schema markup, creating an About page for the author.
What to Ignore
- Generic "add author bio" advice — it's table stakes, not E-E-A-T
- Schema without substance — marking up a page with Person schema when the content shows no experience is worse than no schema
- Gaming quality rater signals — the raters aren't fooled, and the algorithm isn't either
Next Step
To apply the fixes: use the improve-content skill with this URL, and paste the gap list as context.
Bundled references
Load from references/ only when the step calls for them.
Scoring and diagnosis:
ymyl-scoring-rubric.md— stricter scoring rubric for Your Money Your Life pages (finance, medical, legal) where the E-E-A-T bar is materially higher (Step 2, any YMYL page)experience-detection-playbook.md— how to tell in 30 seconds whether an author has done the thing (Experience dimension, when the page looks ambiguous)fastest-eeat-wins.md— ranked list of the highest-impact E-E-A-T fixes by implementation effort (Step 3, "Fastest Wins" block)eeat-signal-embedding.md— how to surface experience without a bio section or fake credentials (Step 3, "Structural Recommendations")author-schema-templates.md— copy-paste Person / Author / Organization JSON-LD for the schema fix (Step 3)
YMYL content-type templates (references/content-types/) — load when auditing one of these types for the type-specific E-E-A-T bar:
thought-leadership.md,product-reviews.md,pricing-pages.md,service-pages.md,case-studies.md,about-pages.md